Whenever there’s any sort of topic where the general population doesn’t have a solid understanding of the technology at hand, urban legends are born. You’re probably familiar with such exaggerated stories – like the one where water boiled in the microwave can explode (only partially true), or the one about the Microsoft email beta test where Bill Gates is sharing his fortune with people who forward the email (people actually bought that story?) – in each case people believed the story because they had very little understanding of the underlying technology.

True or False: Can You Fix a Scratched CD With Toothpaste?

Taken at face value, the claim seems very odd and very likely false. How could smearing a paste on the surface of your CD save the data that lies within? Why not just dip your CD in ketchup, jelly or dish soap for that matter? The truth about the toothpaste claim comes out when you take a look at how a CD actually works. Please examine my poorly drawn sketch of a cross section of a standard CD.

Each of the major layers of a typical CD are displayed here. When you flip over a CD and hold it up to the light to look for a scratch, what you’re looking at is the “thick” polycarbonate plastic layer. I put the word thick in quotes, because we’re talking 1.2 mm here.

Now, if you follow the path of the laser beam through the clear plastic layer, you’ll see that it strikes the aluminum (or reflective) layer. This layer bounces the light directly back to the CD reader. As the CD spins, the time it takes for the light to reflect and return tells your CD ROM whether or not there’s a “pit” or “land” – the structure within the CD where the data is encoded.

The technology within your CD/DVD drive is actually very impressive considering that the process where the laser from your drive “reads” this structure is very precise. When the outer surface of the polycarbonate layer is nice and smooth, this process works slick – and your music or video game runs like a champ. However, what happens when there’s a significant scratch on the outer surface of the polycarbonate layer?

As the CD spins and the laser is busy scanning the pit data pattern along each track and decoding the information, when it hits a significant scratch in the polycarbonate surface, the laser beam is deflected just enough so that the pit data pattern is misread.

Now, normally for very small or occasional scratches, this isn’t a huge deal because the data on the CD and the CD drive circuitry has an integrated error-checking code system to handle the occasional misread bit here and there. However, when the scratch is significant enough so that the laser beam misreads a large batch of the track, the disk either skips or becomes unreadable.

Toothpaste To The Rescue – A Minty Fresh CD Repair

A lot of people testify that rubbing toothpaste (either with a soft cloth or a cotton swab) along the scratch has the ability to correct the problem described above. Does this really work, and if so – why? The answer is: Yes. It works, and it works well.

First, when you place a dab of toothpaste on the scratch (preferably baking soda or other “gritty” paste, not gel) and rub the paste into the scratch from the center of the CD outward, you are essentially “sanding” down the imperfection on the surface of the polycarbonate plastic layer. By sanding away the imperfection, you’re removing deflection of the laser beam, and by doing so you’re correcting the problem. Of course, before you attempt to do a “toothpaste buff,” always make sure to wash off any dust and fingerprints from the surface of the CD.

Dry it off with a soft cloth, and always wipe the CD starting from the center and outward toward the outer edge of the CD. This will reduce the chance that you’ll introduce any additional scratches across multiple tracks. Once the CD is clean and dry, you’re ready to buff the surface with toothpaste.

Apply a dab of paste (not gel) to a cotton swab or soft cloth and apply it directly to the scratch. Rub the toothpaste in small circles (like you’re buffing a car) along the length of the scratch. This goes against everything your mother ever told you about not touching the back of a CD – but trust me, you’re doing the right thing.

After a while, you’ll notice that while you’ve created some very fine surface scratches, the deeper scratch has either grown faint or entirely disappeared. Don’t apply too much force when you’re “sanding” the scratch – a gentle circular motion is all you need to buff it away. When you’re satisfied that the scratch is either gone or reduced enough to make a difference, put the CD through another gentle rinse and dry.

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LTT

August 25, 2017 at 5:29 am

The dozen or so times I've attempted to recover a CD, gentle polishing with toothpaste has worked zero times. But it's the first thing I try, since I have to start with a clean CD for any subsequent steps anyway.

Reading the CD in a different drive has worked a few of times.

Using one of those "exact copy" programs that can supposedly compensate for drift and some CRC errors has worked a few of times.

Can confirm. This works. I can see a scratch being so deep it wouldn't always work but for small little dings it works wonders. I just bought dukes of hazzard on ps1. Game worked but was really buggy, Intro music was hurting my ears from all the skips, cut scenes were also unwatchable and had to be skipped. Coated the whole disc in tooth paste, then washed off with water, then sprayed the disc with a solution and cleaning pad from a laptop screen cleaner. Put my disc in and was amazed. The kick ass theme song went off without a hitch and all cut scenes are now 100% watchable and don't skip. I know it sounds stupid,,but it works.

Why don't you go blow your head off and let decent human beings discuss solving things worth while and what is being discussed. You bully , smart as_ coward , dirt bag. Hope your CD's and your TV tears up so before you die you can think about how much a piece of shi_ you are.....

Now y'all listen to Eddie! I am clam, I have scratched CDs and I just wanna know who take it ass? When I was young I got tangled up in the rib banging scene and I'm looking to change my ways.. Bernie Griffin has shown me the way.. he can show you too.. now get down on your knees and get begging to Moses to save your arse.. because once Eddie gets ahold it's on like 75 olds muffler pipe

One X360 game fixed, another almost done (needs one or two times toothpasting, every time it loads further), both were scratched by the console when it fell from vertical stance. With this guide, I saved about 40 euros, so thanks a lot! :)

One of the best solutions to get the music from the disc is to put it in your comp, rip it then burn a cdr of all the songs (plus any additional if you want to fill it to max). Works like a charm. I just did this with a cd and it plays perfectly on cdr with no noticable loss of audio quality.

TOOTH PASTE RUINED MY CD! I't seriously made it worse...I can't even use it now. It was messed up, but it kind of worked the sound would cut out after a certain amount of time, but hey I figured I would use the toothpaste trick, because a lot of people use it and swear it works...well not for me it made my dvd player act up. It froze on my computer afterwords.... o.o

Hi Lindsay, I realize this might be a silly question, but did you make sure the clean it off thoroughly before you tried it again? The toothpaste can obviously get trapped in the scratches so thoroughly cleaning it off well after the buffing is an important step!

Yeah man the toothpaste method in my opinion is as real as jenkem. Thier both things that thousands on the net claim is real but is just another legend for us to all get excited about with embarrassingly disappointing results... Mythbusters anyone? But really, look up jenkem everybody. Its xxxxx up shit.

Hey Ryan,
I use a car care product on my discs and a microfibre cloth. 'Meguiars Plastex', which is for eliminating the haze and scratches from your headlights, even states on the bottle that it can be used for removing scratches from CD's. 'Mothers' makes a similar product. I have brought back to life so many Playstation discs, some that would not even load, mostly with just one application. One stubborn disc had about 10 cleans as it continually stopped reading the further I progressed in the game, and each clean let me keep going until I completed it. Went all the way from unreadable to completed. This stuff just keeps building on the repairs it has already done.You only need a tiny drop the size of a chocolate chip to clean a whole disc, not just a small part of it, so it's far greater value than products sold specifically for disc cleaning. You could do 100's of discs from one bottle.
FYI, toothpaste is really good for cleaning the grease off your hands after you've been working on the car.

I think there's some concepts left a little murky by this article and following comments........
1st of all......nowhere is it mentioned that the "foil" side of the disk IS EXTREMELY DELICATE!! You can put a scratch in THAT side of the disk with a light fingernail touch....and if you put any damage on that side IT IS UNREPAIRABLE! So be very gentle and careful where you put it down while you rub your stuff on the plastic side.
Repairing a hugely damaged plastic side of the disk is simple and effective. You are buffing a blemish and taking off some of the plastic to smooth out the damage and allow the light to pass undeflected. I use a buffing machine and have repaired completely unreadable disks that have sit on the floor of the car for months (kids!) with dust and soda pop stains all over them IF THE FOIL ON THE WRITING SIDE IS UNDAMAGED. Be careful using machines and buffing.....they will heat the plastic and you can melt it and make an unfixable problem if in the process you heat it up too much.
Be careful but I've never had a failure if it's just cleaning up the plastic side.
taka

Takastone - Awesome points about the opposite side of the disk. A lot of folks believe that since there's a label then that side is protected, but you bring up an excellent point. Put a deep stratch on that side of the disk and you may as well throw it in the garbage! Thanks for your comment!

A couple of notes, first off - good article. I have seen many CD's and DVD's trashed when a simple resurfacing could have restored them to playabilty.

However, I would recommend NOT using soap and water to clean any disc, as the water will tend to cause the aluminum layer to separate from the acrylic substrate. Isopropyl alcohol(aka rubbing alcohol) works great for cleaning and will prevent separation. Make sure to gently clean in straight lines from the inside rim to the outside.

Second, use the same stroke for the toothpaste or Brasso, straight lines from inside rim to outer rim with a soft, lint-free cloth. The reason is that circular strokes will lead to longer grooves that more readily deflect the laser beam and cause mis-reads and errors.

I swear by using Pledge wood polish. The spray kind, regardless of scent works to fill the small scratches in CD's and I use it regularly. The wax that is sprayed out on the CD fills the gaps and makes your CD's like new again. I've used it probably 30 times with only a few failures due to really deep scratches. Kids movies are safe again!!

Hey Shaun - thanks for your comment. Good point! Waxing is another approach I've heard people use with great success, although I believe wax is a temporary solution. So I'm curious - do your wax-repairs last long after you get the CD to start playing again?

They do last for the entire time the disc is playing but may need occasional re-application. The thing is, pledge is seriously cheap, quick and easy to apply. It may not be permanent but it sure works in a hurry when you have an upset 4 year old wanting to watch Thomas the Tank!

Yes - but with DVDs you'll want to be more careful for a few reasons. First, the data "bumps" are jam packed much closer together so more susceptible to any surface damage that may inadvertently re-direct the laser beam - and secondly in order to increase the sensitivity of the reader, DVD's have a thinner plastic outer layer than CD's, so while it's still okay to sand/buff with toothpaste, you'll probably want to do so with a DVD a bit more gently... There's a LOT more data jammed together on there!

I have heard Brasso does the trick. I have used toothpaste on several occasions and found that most times it worked only on shallow scratches. Deeper scratches require the disc to be polished by my local video store clerk.
Ezra, peanut butter?

It sure does - although grittier toothpaste (like with baking soda) works best. As other readers have commented, Brasso definitely works as well - but if you don't have any available, just dig out your toothpaste and buff away!

Yes, technically you're right and that one line was sloppiness on my part - the 0 or 1 comes from whether or not the laser is reflected or refracted. Almost literally the light coming back turns off or on because a pit doesn't return the light to the reader - not a "delay." Thanks for the correction! Don't worry about nitpicking - nitpickers keep the facts straight. :)

A better solution, IMHO, is to use "Brasso" and cotton balls. I put a small amount of Brasso on a cotton ball and gently rub small circles on the disc, until it is well covered. I let this sit for about five minutes, then take the disc to the sink and rinse it off with lukewarm water and a very small amount of hand soap. Then I dry it off with a microfiber cloth or some other lint free substance. This has worked for me almost every time, unless the scratch extends beyond the depth of the plastic into the inner coating.

Ryan has a BSc degree in Electrical Engineering. He's worked 13 years in automation engineering, 5 years in IT, and now is an Apps Engineer. A former Managing Editor of MakeUseOf, he's spoken at national conferences on Data Visualization and has been featured on national TV and radio.